The 411 on DoNotTrackMe’s new features

Whether you’re trying out DoNotTrackMe for the first time or you’re a tracker-blocking veteran, some of you–the lucky ones!–will see new features today. Here’s how to get the most out of them for big privacy improvements.

DoNotTrackMe still blocks hundreds of companies from monitoring your online life, but now it also lets you protect the contact information you’re often forced to give out on the web, like your email address.

Let’s say you’re like Julie, who loves shopping online. She buys something from a new site, ShoppingSite.com, and has to create a new account to check out. Julie wants to get her confirmation emails after buying something to be able to track shipping and know her purchase worked, but she doesn’t want to get dozens of emails a week now from ShoppingSite.com just because of this one purchase. With DoNotTrackMe’s new email masking, she can give out a “fake” email just to ShoppingSite.com, still get all important messages from them, but easily block them from spamming her if they start to get annoying later.

To interact with DoNotTrackMe, look for the blue icon in the corner of your browser window:

Click the icon to expand DoNotTrackMe and see how many companies you’ve blocked from secretly following your browsing activity.

You’ll now see a tab called “MaskMe anti-tracking” with these four new areas. Read about what each one does below:

1. Click on the “MaskMe anti-tracking” tab to expand it

This shows you more details about the contact information you’re protecting.

2. Free privacy protection for your email address

We’ve added the option to use simple privacy protections for your existing contact information, including your email address. Now you can mask your personal email address, whether it’s a Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Outlook.com, or any other account.

To start masking your email, click in any online form asking for an email address and DoNotTrackMe will come up. For example, try twitter.com. DoNotTrackMe will come up and give you a choice: give the site your real email, or give them a fake one. Masked Emails are “fake but functional:” they forward messages to your MaskMe inbox, or to your real inbox if you set up free forwarding.

Masked Emails let you block spammers in one click, safely sign up for coupons, anonymously register for websites, and significantly reduce your damages after a hack or data breach. It’s free and unlimited.

3. Keep track of your emails in the dashboard

Click “Open MaskMe dashboard” to see the emails you’ve created at various websites. You can also see any messages sent to your Masked Emails in the temporary inbox.

But the real privacy power comes from masking an existing email account you already use. You can enable this feature in Settings. Once you do, any messages sent to a Masked Email will forward to your real inbox.

4. Mask your phone number and credit card, too

Masked Phones and Masked Cards work just like Masked Emails. If you want to shop online and receive calls without companies knowing your real info, enable these features within DoNotTrackMe by switching the red sliders from “Masking Off” to “Masking On.” You can also turn them on through the MaskMe dashboard.

Masked Phone and Masked Credit Card are turned off by default, but they’re available for $5/month.

Still have questions? See how each feature works in 30 seconds with our quick illustrated explanations:

Hi Lewis – Make sure the email address tied to your account is correct, and if they’re still not forwarding, please contact support at abine dot com, and we will be glad to assist. Sorry for the inconvenience!